Reply #32: I disagree completely with Obama's premise.

[amandabeech]

I also think that part of the problem is that he seems to be listening only to people who come from the fiancial world or who regulated it. I am not aware that anyone from manufacturing, whether they be management or labor, is someone that he consults every day or any day. I think that it skews his perspective and the people he knows from his years in school aren't doing him any good either. I went to a grad school in the same league with the ones he went to and I did not meet one soul there in four years who had anything good to say about manufacturing or the people involved in it, let alone anyone from the lower middle or working classes. I also have never heard of Obama consulting with the sacrificed Steelworkers that he was supposed to be helping on the South Side of Chicago. I wish that he would have called some of them up, at least the ones who feel confident enough to tell him things that he doesn't want to hear.

As to the current banking system. The big players are not doing much to help currently. They're not doing much lending. Instead they are calling in loans. They're not buying commercial paper, which is short-term debt of good-sized companies. They're going after credit card holders by jacking up interest rates whenever they can for little or no reason, and looking to lay on huge fees whenever they can possibly get away with it. You only have to talk to a few people and read about the problems around here to find out. We're giving the banking institutions trillions, and they refuse to help. You say that we need them and we have to support them.

Some people complain about Detroit's products. Well, what about the financial weapons of mass destruction that the financial institutions have been producing and selling since the mid-80s? Those are the things that have caused the problem. They have been shown to be made of smoke and mirrors, and are much worse than anything that detroit has put out including the exploding pinto. It's just that they are harder for most people that understand them.

Please post some figures on the banks and unimployment. The failure of GM and Chrylser, and that's where I think that Pres. Obama is going, will cut 2 million, and a lot of that is in parts of the country where unemployment is the highest.

I say we don't give the banks who are not helping any more money. If we give money, we control the banks in the same way that Obama wants to control GM and Chrysler. We approve the business plan and they do what we want. Take it or leave it. I can't believe that there are no banks in the world who wounld't step up immediately to start lending here in the U.S. if we gave them some seed money. Let's start with Lulu's Brazilion banks. The Canadian banks have been very prudent and I say we ask them to come in and run prudent banks here. Even the Germans have been smart and they have banks not involved in producing or purchasing too much of the poison products of Citibank and Goldman and AIG. Bring them in. We helped build them up after WWII. Now it's their turn to return the favor. Send us some competent bankers, and let us help them.